Guided by Voices

Half Smiles of the Decomposed (Matador)

"There's nothing that separates Decomposed too drastically from the last few GBV outings."

And so we come to last call at the House of GBV, and it's hard not to get a bit misty. For whatever indifference or disappointment greeted anything he'd made since Under the Bushes, over the years, Bob Pollard had become a bit like The Dude -- we took comfort in knowing that he was out there, the Drunk, doing a high-kick for all us sinners. As such, it's tempting to let GBV's final record take a back seat to The Concept of "GBV's Final Record" -- which, in some ways, is okay. There's nothing that separates Decomposed too drastically from the last few GBV outings. Pollard dutifully sprinkles a few mind-blowing pop songs ("The Closets of Henry") amidst a bunch of barely adequate ones. While this album is unlikely to gain the group any 11th-hour fans, it provides just enough to remind the rest of us what we'll be missing three years from now. -- J. Edward Keyes